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Lena is thrilled. Thrilled and sweaty.
She hasn’t had to be on her toes this much against an opponent in a long time and she’s enjoying every second of it. It’s not a big surprise; this is the championship bout after all, so the woman currently advancing on her would have had to win against top notch fencers in the tournament to get to this point.
Lena isn’t very familiar with her. Kara Danvers is her name and as far as Lena knows, she hasn’t been fencing competitively for very long, or else their paths would surely have crossed a few times already. The world of fencing is small, and even smaller once you get to the level where they are at, competing for one of the few remaining spots on the Olympic fencing team.
Either way, Lena isn’t about to let some newbie beat her. She’s worked too hard for this, and Lillian likes to remind her of that every chance she gets, like now, when she yells at Lena from the sidelines while Lena works to parry Kara’s current attack.
“That was pathetic,” she hears her mother scoff. “I’ve paid your coaches thousands of dollars and this is the best you can manage?”
Lena tries to tune her out as she bounces backwards on her feet. Kara’s fencing style is aggressive. It’s effective, the score is close, but Lena sees that Kara is a little bit reckless at times, and she’s been scoring points off defensive moves more than she usually does in her bouts.
It works. She’s up 12-9 and there are less than 30 seconds left. Lena figures she can goad Kara into one or two more lunges and either avoid contact or score her own points off a defensive thrust. It’s an uphill battle for her opponent, and Kara is likely to go all in on her offense in an attempt to even up the score.
It’s a solid strategy, defend her lead and win. But then, as she takes a quick step back in the wake of Kara lunging at her, Lena’s right knee buckles. She hears a pop and loses her balance. As soon as her back hits the piste, Lena feels excruciating pain shoot up her leg, and she knows immediately that it’s bad.
Then a few things happen all at once. Lena focusses on her breathing and on trying to muffle the sounds she is making. She doesn’t want to cry, not here, not in front of everyone, but the pain in her leg is beyond anything she’s ever felt before, and she can’t help but let out small whimpers as she tries to roll onto her side. Then, her coach is there, helping her pull her helmet off. He is asking her questions that barely register, and Lena tries to hold in a yelp when he touches her leg. But the thing that captures most of her attention is her opponent, Kara, who is kneeling down next to her with a deeply concerned frown on her face.
“Get up,” Lillian hisses from somewhere behind Lena. “Luthors aren’t quitters.”
Lena clenches her jaw. She doesn’t really see the point of trying to finish the bout. Even if she is able to get up and stand, she knows she can’t fence properly with her knee in its current state. There are still 20 seconds left and Kara would have no problem scoring enough points to win. If she stays down and forfeits, Kara wins, too. Either way, it’s over for Lena.
“Do you think you can continue?” Her coach asks.
As much as Lena wants to yell no and tell both him and Lillian to fuck off, she knows she’ll never hear the end of it if she gives up now. Lillian is going to spend the next twenty years reminding her that she’s a disgrace to the Luthor name, too weak, too soft. Maybe she can try and hobble on one leg for 20 seconds and maybe, just maybe it’ll be enough.
Lena nods. She’s not sure she can speak at this point, so she sticks to glaring at her mother and shifting around a bit to let her coach hook his arm under her right shoulder to help her up. When she wobbles immediately, Lena feels a second set of hands on her. Her head snaps around and she’s met with a very close-up view of blonde hair, tan skin and vibrant blue eyes.
“Careful,” Kara says as she helps Lena to her feet and lets her lean against her for balance for a few seconds.
It’s only when Kara is sure that Lena can stand on her own that she lets go, and Lena immediately misses how steady her hands felt on her body. They lock eyes and Kara asks:
“You sure you want to finish the bout?”
Lena isn’t sure. She can’t put any of her weight on her right leg at all, and the throbbing pain is so distracting that she completely misses her coach’s instructions for what to do now. But she nods anyway. She doesn’t think she has much of a choice. She’ll try to stay upright and maybe, with some luck, she can stay out of the way of Kara’s attacks long enough to maintain her lead. It’s 20 seconds. All she has to do is get through 20 seconds.
Kara nods back at Lena and then, just before she slips her helmet back on, Lena thinks she spots a small smile on her opponent’s face. Her stomach sinks. Kara isn’t stupid. She’s a talented fencer. She’ll know how to outmaneuver a severely limited Lena with ease to score enough points to win three times over. And that smile on Kara’s face tells Lena all she needs to know. Kara is probably already planning her victory celebration.
Lena sighs, puts her helmet on and hobbles into position. She can barely move. Anytime she jostles her right leg by hopping around on her left, the pain shooting up and down her body makes her feel dizzy. Even just keeping her balance enough to stay upright seems like an impossible challenge.
The referee tells them to get ready and Lena lifts her foil and her chin, and tries to drown out the run-on commentary coming from her mother. She knows she’s going to lose, but she can at least try and keep her pride intact.
“Allez,” the referee tells them and Lena hobbles backwards to put distance between herself and Kara. Her main strategy now is to stay out of her way as much as possible.
Kara, as she has done throughout the bout, bounces on her feet and gets into position to lunge. Lena braces herself for the attack but then Kara simply bounces backwards, toward her end of the piste. Lena is confused. It could very well be a set up for a running attack, one where Kara needs more space to generate momentum, but it’s not something she’s seen Kara do before. Still, she tries to set her feet as much as possible to give herself a chance to dodge whatever move Kara has planned.
But nothing happens. Kara continues to bounce on her feet far away from Lena. Her foil is up and ready but it doesn’t look like she’s going to approach at all. Lena can hear Lillian’s voice, biting and loud as always, but she can’t hear what her mother is saying. She is too focussed on Kara and the fact that she’s not attacking at all.
And then the buzzer signals that time’s up, that the bout is over.
Lena moves towards Kara. She’s on autopilot, hobbling two steps but before she can even reach the middle of the piste to shake her opponent's hand, Kara is there, pulling her into a hug that Lena knows is meant to be congratulatory but ends up feeling more like something else. Kara is a bit taller than her, her shoulders broader, and in that moment, Lena feels cocooned and safe even as her thoughts oscillate between confusion, elation and irritation.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Lena snaps.
They’re still hugging and Lena doesn’t intend to let go anytime soon, but the words are out of her mouth before she can stop them.
She feels more than hears Kara chuckle. “What?”
“You shouldn’t have let me win.”
Lena expects Kara to pull away, to tell her to go fuck herself. It’s what she would do if their roles were reversed. Instead, Kara only hugs her more tightly and even presses a soft kiss to Lena’s forehead before she pulls back a little to look at her.
“You won fair and square,” Kara tells her with a smile on her face before pulling Lena back against her body, one hand gently cradling the back of Lena’s head.
The whole moment feels like an out-of-body experience to Lena. They’re competitors who barely know each other, and here she is in Kara’s arms like they’re best friends. Kara even kissed her fucking forehead. A part of Lena wants to pull away and ask her what the hell her deal is, but something about this moment feels too good to fight it.
So Lena doesn’t.
“Will you let me buy you a drink,” Lena asks and her voice is muffled because her face is still pressed against Kara’s shoulder. “To make it up to you.”
There’s another chuckle and then Kara takes a careful step back but holds Lena up with firm hands on her upper arms.
“Let’s get your knee sorted out first, okay?”
And just like that the spell between them is broken. Lena sees her coach approach her, and somewhere behind him are two EMTs who are pushing a wheelchair towards her. Lillian is there, too, of course, barking instructions at the EMTs to take Lena to Lakeview Hospital, even though that’s on the other side of the city, but Lena knows the Luthors have connections to several surgeons there.
In the flurry of activities around her, Kara disappears out of view as soon as Lena is helped into the wheelchair. Lena is sure she won’t see her again, at least not for a while. Fencing will likely be out of the question for a few months until her injury heals, and that’s pretty much all she knows about Kara, that she is a fencer. As she is pushed out of the building and into the back of the waiting ambulance, the door closes with a loud bang. Lena tries not to cry.
Lillian’s connections and large donations to the hospital mean that Lena heads into surgery that very same evening. Both her ACL and MCL are shot, and while the surgeon manages to repair both, he tells her that recovery will take many months and a lot of hard work. It’s not something Lillian likes to hear.
“She can’t miss that much time. She’ll have to prepare for the Olympics.”
The drugs in Lena’s system allow her to doze off during the argument between her surgeon and Lillian that follows.
When Lena wakes up the following morning, Lillian is gone and Lena is thankful. The nurse tells her that her mother had to take care of some business matters but would return after lunch, and Lena can’t help but hope that Lillian might stay away longer. Her hopes are dashed when she hears a small knock, but when she looks up, it’s not Lillian who is hovering in the doorway.
It’s Kara.
“Hey.”
Kara is holding a large bouquet of flowers and is sporting that same small smile that Lena saw the day before just as they were about to finish their bout.
“You came,” Lena says, her voice still a little drowsy from sleep and the pain medication.
Kara grins and pushes off the doorframe. Lena watches as she comes closer and deposits the flowers into a pitcher of water that’s sitting on the small table next to her bed. She’s pretty sure the water was meant for her to drink, but she feels too mesmerized to say anything to Kara, who is now standing right next to her bed.
“I did. Is that alright?”
Lena’s eyes drift towards where Kara’s hip is leaning against her bed and without thinking, she shifts her hand and reaches out to touch Kara’s, loosely letting her fingers curl around a warm, soft palm.
“More than alright,” Lena manages to say even as her eyelids droop.
Kara laces their fingers together and squeezes.
“You should rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Promise?”
“Of course. I need you to be rested and lucid when I ask you for your number later.”
“Mhm,” Lena mumbles, barely awake. “I believe I asked you out first.”
That prompts a proper laugh, a sound that sends pleasant shivers down Lena’s spine.
“You did. You win.”